Microsoft reacts to the Gmail Factor
Thursday, December 21st, 2006
Microsoft is recommending that that employers increase the size of Exchange mailboxes, as it moves to head off the increasing trend among workers to auto-forward their email to more expansive Gmail accounts.
Other new features in Exchange 2007 also take aim at Gmail’s search and mobile-access features.
Dan Warne at APC Magazine reports 
that,
IT departments have traditionally applied such restrictive limits to Exchange Server mailboxes -as low as 25MB per staff member - that users have become frustrated with repeated “your mailbox is full” errors.
Meanwhile, only senior execs have been granted access to work email from home, or via a Blackberry.
As a result, more and more users are auto-forwarding all their email to Gmail, where they have a 2.7GB mailbox capacity and can access it wherever they are - even via a mobile phone.
Microsoft hopes that larger mailboxes will stem the flood.
It will also offer a search feature 35 times faster than Exchange 2003 and plans to release a mobile-access app for Exchange, code-named “Crossbow”, which will offer remote searching of, and quick access to, Exchange mail.
Not everyone is a lucky as me. The IT Department where I work would rather carve their own hearts out with an Apple Remote than run Exchange. It also provides bottomless mailboxes.
If you are really interested in what the new Exchange 2007 will be like, or if your workplace forces you to use it, you can see some demos of the new features on Microsoft’s web site.
You can also look forward to Microsoft’s promise that,
Exchange Server 2007 was designed from the ground up to enable your IT department to deliver bold new communication capabilities - voice-controlled inboxes, Outlook-based voice mail - without sacrificing productivity or compromising budgets.
[Via APC Magazine ]
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